


The Fever

by Natashasolten



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Fever Dreams, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 05:52:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6411454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natashasolten/pseuds/Natashasolten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was as if the stars dragged their chains through the night. Damen could hear them rattling on the battlements. He thought he heard himself say, “Make them stop.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fever

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place right after King's Rising.

It was as if the stars dragged their chains through the night. Damen could hear them rattling on the battlements. He thought he heard himself say, “Make them stop.”

“Damen,” said Laurent.

For a moment he was back in Arles, lying on a mat on his stomach, chained to the hard floor, his back burning. Then he heard the sea’s howl, smelled the rush of salt wind. His mind formed a picture of ivory cliffs. White marble cornices. Ios. The White City. And he remembered where he was.

The blanket was on fire. He pushed it back. Tried to open his eyes. Something soft and cool and damp came to rest upon his forehead.

That beautiful voice again. “Damen, try to relax,” said Laurent. Then, as if to someone else in the room, “He had a rough night.”

Damen’s hand rose, reached out and up. Felt the air. Blind. Finally, a touch. Fingers wove between his own. He gripped back hard.

He remembered a thought from some time ago—how long?—that if Laurent was holding his hand, he must be dying.

Someone touched him gently on the belly. He tried not to recoil at the startling pain. Tried to see. Laurent held his hand tighter. “Easy,” he said. “Easy.” His other hand stroked through Damen’s hair. The voice of his beloved hummed into his mind as pain dug into him. “You’re going to be fine. You just need to rest.”

Later, something bitter was pressed to his lips. He coughed. Choked. Got some of it down.

“I drained the wound. He’ll sleep now,” said a voice he knew. Paschal.

It did not seem like sleep. Where Damen went the winds flamed. The air was red. He kept seeing Laurent in the distance. Too far away. He called out. Twice, when he got close, Laurent dropped to his knees, head bowed, golden hair whipping about his face. Twice Laurent said to him, “Yes, uncle.”

Damen strained to speak over the roar of the storm. “No. It’s me. Laurent, it’s me!”

But Laurent turned away as if he did not hear him.

Finally the winds softened. The air cooled. He heard the rustle of the palm tree outside the window.

He opened his eyes. Shadows quivered in the lantern-light. On the bedside table, a candle lapped at the air. By his side, a bigger light. Laurent the wick, his hair the flame. Such beauty, as if the moon had breathed him into being. Muscles tightened in the back of Damen’s throat.

His body hurt, but he ignored it. “Is it night?” As soon as he asked, he realized how stupid the question was. Of course it was night. The darkness beyond the lamps and yellow embers circled like a beast.

“Yes,” said Laurent, turning. “You’re awake.”

Damen’s blurred vision could not make out every detail of him, but saw he wore blue Veretian trousers, and a white shirt laced loosely at his chest. What had happened to the white chiton? He remembered now. It had been covered in blood. Damen’s blood.

He looked down and saw he lay naked among tumbled pillows. A white sheet covered him to the hips.

The Laurent-flame was moving toward him. He heard water dripping into a bowl. A cool cloth bathed his face and chest. Laurent said, “You’ve been asleep, on and off, for two days.”

“I was trying to find you,” said Damen.

“I’ve been here with you the whole time,” came the answer. Gentle fingers pressed the hair at the top of his head.

“You were lost,” said Damen.

“Was I?”

Damen nodded, but the question made him unsure of his words. “I think so.” He took a breath. “It was red there. And hot. And we kept being separated.”

“Fever dreams,” supplied Laurent. “Do you remember why?”

Damen searched Laurent’s face, the beautiful edges composed as always, but for the startle of blue in eyes that had for so long been icy, but were now softened by a fond warmth, muscles tightened only by hints of worry.

Of course Damen remembered. Kastor had stabbed him. And Laurent had killed him. Killed his brother in the slave baths while Damen bled out on the white tile floor.

They had come full circle. A brother for a brother.

“Kastor is dead,” said Damen.

Laurent nodded once. His pink lips formed a straight line. Moisture sparked his eyes.

Damen tried to sit up but pain kept him from getting too far. “These are my father’s rooms. I must be moved.”

“They are the king’s rooms. You are king. Remember the bells?”

Yes, he remembered. And Theomedes was dead. At the moment, he did not feel like much of a king.

Laurent said, his voice sounding hesitant, hitched, “I thought the memory of the crown prince’s room would be too much for you at this time. I ordered you brought here.”

“Yes. You’re right.” The last time he’d seen his rooms they had been red with blood, strewn with the bodies of beloved servants, precious slaves. His breath caught, sudden, unexpected. “But everywhere I turn—“

“Death.” Laurent finished his sentence for him. Softly, “I know.”

Damen’s eyelids brushed the surface of collected tears that fell like a sudden storm-gust.

Laurent said gently, “Lie back,” and ran the damp cloth over his face again. Damen saw Laurent move closer, bend his knee, come onto the bed. He curled against Damen’s side, head raised above his. Damen felt the bare feet slide under the sheet and slip against his naked thigh.

Laurent circled one arm above Damen’s head and the other over his bare chest. He leaned close. The blue of his eyes was like a wavery sea. He ran his lips over Damen’s forehead. Whispered, “I’m glad you’re back.”

Damen let a shaky smile form. There were tears, still, in the back of his throat. “Still feeling a bit vulnerable.”

Laurent’s hand above him pressed into his hair. “Understandable.”

Damen slept again. This time it was blue and soft. The warmth at his side never left.

 

*

 

He thought he heard his father’s voice. In the echoes outside in the hall. In the sea-wind. In the thrum of his heart.

But it was Laurent he wanted. And Laurent who never left his side.

The room was still filled with many of his father’s things, much-loved sculptures of horses and stags, a favorite chair with purple pillows, a table with a base like a tree. Kastor, he had been told, had stayed with Jokaste in his own rooms even as he ruled these past six months. He had not touched the king’s quarters.

Damen had mourned Theomedes before he’d been ambushed, enslaved, taken away in chains. But now it seemed like everything had just happened yesterday. He could still hear his father’s labored breathing on the day of his death. He could still hear that powerful voice. “Damen, my son. You will be a great king.”

“You might not believe that my father was a good man,” said Damen.

Laurent stood by the side of the bed, tray in hand. “You might not believe that so was mine.” He had already helped Damen prop himself against some pillows. Now for the first time since being stabbed, he was going to try to eat.

It was morning. The gulls bewitched the sky with their cries. Sunlight streamed in peach and yellow light through the big window.

Laurent handed Damen a chalice with broth. “It’s hot,” he said. “Drink it slow.”

It tasted like paradise. It felt wonderful going down into his empty stomach. He could feel the liquid pool there, just above his navel. Starving, he did not drink it slow.

Later, when Damen asked to get up, Paschal said, “Not until tomorrow.”

“I need a bath,” Damen complained. He had been using chamber pots and desperately wished they’d at least allow him a walk to the privy.

“You don’t like my sponge baths?” Laurent teased.

Damen loved them, in truth. But he was tired of being in bed. He merely answered Laurent’s inquiry with a sideways smile.

Laurent brought him books, cards, games.

Protesting, Damen said, “You should take a break. Get out. Go for a walk.”

“No.”

Laurent would not hear of it. They ate together. Slept together. Laurent read to him. Played cards with him. Listened quietly while he talked about Kastor.

“I don’t understand why I mourn a man who killed my father and usurped the throne,” said Damen.

“Because you’re a good man. Because you loved him.”

“He enslaved me and then tried to kill me. And he tried to kill you. Why should I feel anything for him even now?”

“You mourn what was, and more so, what you wished had been,” Laurent explained. “Brothers are a funny thing, getting under your skin like that.” He sighed heavily.

Damen reached for him. Laurent touched their hands palm to palm.

“Why did he never love me in return?” Damen asked softly. “I didn’t do anything to him. Ever.”

“Jealousy makes men go mad.”

“I promised him everything I could think of.”

“It’s never enough for men like that. You are a good man; he was not. You were everything that he was missing, all the warmth and empathy and caring you have—those are things he must not have known. Your muscles have power, Damen, but your heart is what makes you strong. His was missing.”

“He must have been angry for a long time. How did I not see?”

“We see what we wish to see in the context of our lives. Even I did not see the truth of you when I met you. How could I?”

“And I didn’t see the truth of you, either,” said Damen.

Damen thought about Laurent’s words for a long while. Could he have changed his fate if he’d been aware of Kastor’s hate? Could Theomedes have been saved?

“I can read your mind. You’re blaming yourself.”

“I didn’t see what was right in front of me.”

Laurent leaned forward and raised his palm to touch the side of Damen’s head. “Few people do.”

Damen’s heart knocked against the inside of his chest. Laurent’s simple touch burned through him like ecstasy.

Laurent sat on the side of the bed. Today he wore a long white shirt and loose, white sleep pants. He had not changed into his Veretian attire yet, though noon was coming on strong, and did not seem in a hurry to do so.

Damen picked up the cards and began to shuffle them for a game. He said, casually, trying to change the mood, “Tell me your most favorite memory.”

Laurent put his head back as if thinking hard. Damen set the cards aside and watched him, the moist mouth curving up, the eyes shifting in the light, giving him that sly, more feral gaze that Damen had hated so much at first, and now loved more than anything.

Laurent looked almost dangerous, except for the amused smile as he spoke. “It starts with these lines. An Akielon prince and a Veretian pet walk into a tavern.”

Damen let out a short laugh.

“Oh,” said Laurent, all innocence. He bent his head, gold hair trailing against one shoulder. “You’ve heard that one before?”

“Don’t make me laugh anymore. It’ll hurt.”

“What about this one? Two princes stumble upon a Vaskian campsite…”

Damen chuckled, one hand going to his wound, pressing his palm against it.

“Or this one: A Veretian prince and an Akielon king pledge an accord to unite their kingdoms forever.” Laurent leaned in, hand still in Damen’s hair, and kissed him softly on the lips.

When he pulled back, Damen said, “That one is my favorite.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! All my fanfic is under the name Natasha Solten. My original m/m romance and science fiction is written under the name Wendy Rathbone. All my novels are available [here](https://www.amazon.com/Wendy-Rathbone/e/B00B0O9BMS/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1) through Amazon.
> 
> Subscribe to my newsletter [here](http://eepurl.com/cqDVcX) for all my writing (including fanfic) updates.


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